Peter Attacks Academy School Proposals

Posted by Peter Dowd5sc on April 14, 2016

Bootle MP attacks Government academy plans

Peter Dowd, MP for Bootle constituency, has attacked plans by the Government to force every school in Bootle, Litherland and Crosby to become an “academy” regardless of the wishes of parents, children or the school concerned.

In attacking the proposals Peter Dowd said:

“David Cameron and the Tories, in their election manifesto last year, said that academies would only be set up with the consent of parents and no school would be forced in to academy status. He has now ratted on that promise.”

The proposals would mean that every school, including all primary schools, would be required to become an academy by 2020 and that parent governors would not be a legal required governing bodies.

The MP went on to say:

“This will be “good bye” to parents who any have given years of service to a school. People from outside our communities will,be parachuted in to run our schools. Some “super heads” will be on as much as £200,000 and will barely have to know the school, the children or the parents who belong to it. This is the most radical change to the education service for 100 years and it has been proposed with no electoral mandate whatsoever. It’s just like the changes the made to how the NHS works and look what a mess they have made of that over the past 5 years.”

He also said:

“I was shocked, as were many of my Labour colleagues and Tory MPs as well, when I heard the Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan, say that the role of parent governors has been “symbolic”. I thought that was an insult to the many hard working school governors over the years. Once again, the Tories want to,put their mates in charge of our schools, just like they have done with the NHS.”

Peter Dowd added:

“There is little evidence that academies are any better than local authority maintained schools. Clearly, the Tories are not interested in evidence to support their case. They simply want to box off private trusts to run our schools at the same time as boxing off their mates. The government’s proposal is called “Educational Excellence Everywhere”. Quite frankly, the government should spend its time help schools to deliver the three “Rs” instead of wasting every one’s time with the the three “Es” and spend the £1.3 billion on education not reorganisation.”